Iran receives first AstraZeneca doses through COVAX | Coronavirus pandemic News

Iran belatedly takes supply of 700,800 AstraZeneca doses as its vaccination programme lags and instances rise.

Tehran, Iran – Some 700,000 doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine have been delivered to Iran as a part of its buy of thousands and thousands of doses by way of the World Well being Group’s COVAX initiative.

As confirmed by an Iranian official and the United Nations’ UNICEF, which dealt with supply, the primary cargo landed in Tehran’s Imam Khomeini Airport Monday night time and included 700,800 doses of the vaccine.

The delivered doses had been manufactured by South Korea’s SK-Bio Institute.

“By the top of Could, 3.6 million doses of the 16.8 million doses bought by way of COVAX might be delivered to Iran,” stated Kianush Janahpur, spokesman for Iran’s Meals and Drug Administration, in a tweet.

Iran, which beforehand stated it bought 4.2 million doses of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine by way of the worldwide vaccine initiative, anticipated them earlier than Nowruz, the Iranian new yr, on March 20.

“Attaining this essential milestone geared toward making certain the worldwide purpose of equitable distribution of COVID-19 vaccines internationally by way of COVAX facility is the important thing precedence for WHO and companions,” UNICEF stated in a press launch after delivering the vaccines.

Iran has now acquired greater than 1.7 million doses of international vaccines and in addition imported 500,000 of the Russian Sputnik V vaccine. It has acquired a donation of 250,000 doses of China’s Sinopharm jab, taken supply of 125,000 doses from India’s COVAXIN, and 100,000 doses of its joint vaccine with Cuba.

Iran additionally has three home vaccines present process varied phases of human trials, with mass manufacturing anticipated to start out by the top of spring.

To this point, lower than 1 p.c of the nation’s greater than 80 million-strong inhabitants has been vaccinated as the federal government has fallen behind its projected schedule to present a minimum of one jab to an estimated 1.3 million weak Iranians.

That is whereas an absence of management over thousands and thousands of journeys and in-person visits made through the two-week Nowruz holidays meant the nation is now going through a fourth main wave of infections, which could possibly be extra harmful than earlier waves because the coronavirus variant first present in the UK is now additionally circulating the nation.

The capital Tehran was declared a “crimson” zone in a colour-coded scale denoting the severity of outbreaks once more on Monday after months of being labeled “orange” or decrease.

Iran has to this point recorded greater than 63,000 deaths and shut to 2 million infections.